They both have roots in Poland and grew up in Tel Aviv, but the musical career paths of violinist Itzhak Perlman and Chazzan Yitzchak Meir Helfgot couldn’t have been more different—until those paths met a few years ago for a performance that took place, of all places, on the White House Lawn. Now they’ve joined forces once again, this time on a new CD that will be released by Sony Music on September 4. The behind-the-scenes story about this unusual collaboration.
It’s not commonly known that the wife and children of violinist Itzhak Perlman enjoy regular Tanach study sessions with a teacher named Judy Geldzahler who Perlman describes as “quite frum.” One evening Mrs. Geldzahler mentioned that she had to run out to a concert after the class. “Who’s giving the concert?” Toby Perlman herself a musician wanted to know.
“Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot” Mrs. Geldzahler said. “He’s amazing!”
“Toby and I are big fans of great singers” explains Mr. Perlman who is himself possessed of a resonant bass voice — in fact he has gamely sung minor operatic parts a few times as well as duets with opera stars Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. “After one of those duets people asked me what I planned to do afterwards ” he says with a grin. “I told them it was my ‘farewell debut.’ ”
At any rate the next time the Perlmans were in Tel Aviv for an engagement with the Israel Philharmonic they heard Helfgot would be singing at the Mann Auditorium. “He was phenomenal” Perlman recalls. “After that I approached him and said ‘Let’s do something together.’ ”
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